There was really no way I could do a Cocoa Coconut theme and not do a lip balm. Cocoa Coconut practically begs to be lip-balm-ized! Since we’re in the midst of ultra-dry wintery weather right now, I opted to make this a Cocoa Coconut Sticky Lip Balm because when it is super dry and my lips are chapped and angry, sticky lip balm is what works. Its thick, tacky consistency means it stays on your lips, trapping in moisture and giving the delicate skin there a chance to heal. While I love a slippy, glossy lip balm, they just don’t offer the same level of winter protection as a sticky lip balm. If you suffer from extra dry lips in the winter, I highly recommend giving this DIY a try!
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This simple lip balm is comprised of just four ingredients, so I really don’t recommend making any substitutions. The first one is beeswax; I used some beautiful unrefined, honey-scented beeswax that I purchased in rural Manitoba several years ago. I absolutely adore purchasing beeswax and honey straight from the beekeepers at local farmers’ markets and highly recommend it if you get the chance. I like beeswax as the wax in lip balms for ultra-dry weather because of its unique creamy/tacky feel. Beeswax is truly essential to the efficacy of this lip balm. To learn more about different waxes and how they impact the feel of our formulations (especially at high concentrations), please review the many guides I’ve shared.
Ingredient #2 is slippy, fragrant coconut oil. The thin, oily feel of coconut oil is a perfect foil to hard, sticky, grippy beeswax, softening and lubricating it to the point of being apply-able. I used Baraka’s “traditional” coconut oil, which is processed with heat (vs cold-pressed) and has a fantastic roasty-toasty coconutty scent that’s richer and warmer than regular virgin coconut oil. Either virgin or traditional would work beautifully here, but I wanted that enhanced coconutty scent from the traditional variety in this lip balm.
Ingredient #3 is luscious, brittle, oh-so-delicious-smelling cocoa butter. Scent-wise, we’ve got warm honey from the beeswax, toasty coconut from the coconut oil, and rich chocolate from the cocoa butter. It’s a fan-frikkin’-tastic scent blend. YUM.
The last ingredient is just a wee bit of vitamin E to delay rancidity. If you wanted to incorporate a bit of a lip-safe essential oil or flavour oil you could drop 0.5% of the coconut oil and add 0.5% essential oil with the vitamin E.
Because of the firm, sticky consistency of this lip balm, I really recommend packaging it in tubes rather than tins. Not only is it much easier to apply, but you won’t end up with a sticky finger (and these days the idea of rubbing my finger on my mouth while I’m out-and-about is even less appealing than usual).
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Cocoa Coconut Sticky Lip Balm
Heated phase
8.625g | 34.5% traditional virgin coconut oil (USA / Canada)
5g | 20% cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
11.25g | 45% beeswax (USA / Canada)Cool down phase
0.125g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)Prepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a small saucepan.
Weigh the heated phase ingredients into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place the measuring cup in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
While the heated phase melts, set out your lip balm tubes, vitamin E, and scale so you can quickly add the vitamin E and then pour the lip balm.
After about 20–30 minutes everything should be completely melted through. Remove the water bath from the heat, remove the measuring cup from the water bath, and dry it off with a dishtowel. Set the measuring cup on a towel or hot pad to insulate it from the counter and stir the mixture with a flexible silicone spatula to combine everything.
Quickly add the cool down phase, stir to incorporate, and pour the melted lip balm into lip balm tubes (you could use tins if you wanted to, but I don’t love having sticky lip balm on my fingers). Leave the tubes on the counter to set up.
Once the lip balms have solidified and cooled down you can cap the tubes. I recommend wiping them down with some paper towel wetted with a bit of rubbing alcohol to remove any oil so your labels stick to the tubes. Label the tubes, and you’re done!
Use as you’d use any lip balm. Enjoy!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this lip balm does not contain any water, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Kept reasonably cool and dry, it should last at least a two years before any of the oils go rancid. If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 25g, which is enough to fill five standard lip balm tubes.
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this formulation, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- The only substitutions I can recommend in this formulation are using refined versions of the ingredients rather than unrefined. If you change anything else you are in re-development territory.
- If you’d like to incorporate an essential oil, please read this (I would reduce the coconut oil to make room for an essential oil or flavour oil).
- If you’re looking for a sticky vegan lip balm, check out this formulation.
- If you’re looking for a glossier lip balm with similar ingredients, check out this formulation.
Gifting Disclosure
The coconut oil and cocoa butter were gifted by Baraka Shea Butter. Links to Baraka Shea Butter are affiliate links.
I was thinking about making your “regular” sticky coconut lip balm for Christmas this year, but this version sounds super tempting too. Decisions, decisions!!!
I think this one is perhaps a bit firmer and more waxy-sticky than tacky-sticky, but it’s a pretty faint difference. I suggest making both… for science 😉 Happy making!
I think I might have to do just that, haha!
Dear Marie! This is in no way relating to this recipe. TFL!DR!
However, I just encountered the craziest thing ever & literally just thought of you first & had to write you to tell you about this absurdity. (I had no idea how to get in touch with you otherwise.)
Okay! Have you ever heard of a thing called ‘Aker Fassi’?
Its supposedly a little terracotta dish containing an ancient Morroccan recipe for lipstick. Guess what its made of? Botanicals.
Before you scoff, just like I was doing a minute ago even though I had finally ordered a dish of this stuff & it was sitting right there in my hand. My husband saw it & said ‘That is lipstick? Did you pay money for it?’ I was thinking the same thing. I thought this etsy.com lady had sent me an empty dish!
So I read & then re-read the little tag. Followed the directions & wet the brush & stroked this empty dish.
And suddenly it was not a tiny brown empty dish, but a deeply pigmented red! Made from ‘pomegranate bark & poppy flower petals’! I applied it, following her instructions to apply several layers to achieve a deep red, & I got a very respectable deep red! I have no idea if this has secret minerals or hidden carmine or possibly a secret lake dye, supposedly it is only the two botanicals mentioned already, ‘sunbaked’ into the terracotta dish, & allowed to fully dry between applications.
Of course, this is a very very old formula that Morroccan women have been using for ages & ages.
Because, well, why not? If they have only been doing this since 1983, its just not as romantic.
I honestly didn’t believe there were ANY botanicals anywhere that could color flesh AT ALL, let alone this well. (Btw, I used to think I could create cosmetics using plants only & I REALLYREALLY worked on it! I made very concentrated extracts of black cherry skin, evaporated solvents from extractions of pomegranate seed, & did repeated macerations of quassia bark & walnut shells..however, I really did not have much luck. I mean, its not just illegal, its also downright tricky..)
Well, I read about this stuff a few years ago, & basically thought ‘well, maybe..I mean, these are the same people who burned frankincense resin & almonds (& lead acetate as we all know) & got Al-Kohl..so if anyone has nailed it..’
Anyways, time will tell if it has any wearing time or goes the distance. I just thought, of all the people I know in the whole wide world who might possibly find this intriguing, it was for sure you!
I know you also spent a buttload of time investigating those same types of things I did..if anyone on the planet has applied more intelligence through rigorous experimentation, with uncanny intuition & a scientist’s curious approach, all the while having to make everything accessible for the blog! When I encountered your work with beetroot & rosehips,etc, I pretty much stopped. I thought, if anyone can figure out how to do this, its this woman! I don’t stand a chance! & then, after witnessing your common struggle, I just stopped thinking anyone but a charlatan or novice would even try!
Anyway, check it out when you have a chance..its very interesting.
Sorry for the novel-length post, but at least I only comment once every few months!
Muchlove, suki
Oooooh, how interesting! I had never heard of such a thing, so thank you so much for sharing 😀 I am wondering if perhaps there is some iron oxide present in the clay dish and perhaps that is contributing? Hmmmmmm. I must do more research!
Also! The ever-determined and brilliant Lise has been sharing some of her successes with plant pigment makeup, and you should definitely check her stuff out 🙂
And—I was just re-reading some of my previous “things I learned in” posts as I work on wrapping up this year’s and re-discovered your lovely comment on 2019’s post. Thank you so much—it put a huge smile on my face (again) 🙂
Hi Marie, all red clays / terracotta has iron oxide in them. Even normal clay (not talking about porcelain) has minor percentages of iron. But the red in the clay comes from the iron. Iron is one of the most abundant elements in the earth crust. I don’t know to which temperate the clay of that dish is fired so not possible to know whether that iron has bonded enough to the other clay particles to not become ‘loose’. If it is fired high enough no iron should leach.
Sorry about my bad English 🙂
Did you ever try alkanet root? That used to be popular in cosmetics before carmine became affordable and synthetic red dyes were developed. LBCC Historical Apothecary on Etsy has a few products colored with alkanet, it looks like more of a berry red than a bright crimson. If you feel like experimenting, Mountain Rose Herbs sells both alkanet root pieces and powder.
I can’t speak for Suki, but I tried it. It’s one of the better plant-based colourants I’ve tried, but can’t hold a candle to carmine for potency 🙂
Dear Lindsay, I have actually worked with alkanet root, & mainly I just found it to be like most botanicals, which is to say, super disappointing!
I agree with Marie regarding the carmine. There’s pretty much nothing else like it.
But, experimentation is the ultimate test & learning experience because you could end up discovering something that no one else has!
Lov, suki
Hey Marie!
I’m so glad! You’re just the bomb. There’s no one like you anywhere!
I’m stoked you hadn’t heard of it before..I can’t help but think the same thing, about the iron oxide, but my other thought was the ‘sunbakedness’..maybe the plant material is naturally acidic & combined with terracotta, sunlight & very dry warm air, I bet fresh (moist) flowers, etc would cause some little chemical reaction maybe? That might be totally silly, but you never know.
I’ll definitely stop in at Lise’s page to check those out!
Thanks for your quick & awesome response!
Good luck writing this year’s ‘what I learned..’ post! I’m so not jealous! I wish you the absolute best with your efforts, sincerely.
Muchlove, suki
This sounds great, interesting topic too (refrerring to comments above)!
Oh my gosh , i made this recipe recently and gifted a bunch of them to my boyfriend !!!
He loves ittttt. And oh my goshh the cocoa butter smell <3
Thanks marie for putting forward such fascinating recipes . Keep up the good work ^-^
I’m so thrilled to hear it! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
Hi Marie, this recipe gave me Bounty (chocholate) kind-of-vibes, so I just had to make it! It smells delish, but I’m not so thrilled with the stickiness… What can I add or swap to make it soft & sweet but not sticky…?
Maybe some dimethicone, like 1% removing that from the coconut oil?
Can i substitute cocoa butter with shea butter?
i just made a batch of these (turned % into grams) after buying something like 5 POUNDS of mostly cleaned beeswax from a local beekeeper. i added a vanilla coconut flavor oil and while hot, it smelled EXACTLY like a mounds bar or coconut haystacks!
Heck yes 😀 Have fun with all that beeswax—wood polish is another great use for it!
I’ve made this a few times now and I love it! It’s truly amazing chocolate’y version of sticky coconut lip balm (lizard lip saviour! ;)) I used some carmine and golden glitter for colour and added some coenzymeQ10 & peppermint EO too. Very lovely nourishing lip balm that keeps my lips smooth for ages. Melting point isn’t the same due to substitutions. I didn’t have ingredients for your latest hot chocolate lip butter so I sort of infused it with this one. I bet chili infused cocoa butter would be nice addition too!